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Joe McCarthy
Certified STOTT PILATES® Instructor Trainer
Co-founder
, Life Balance
Joe McCarthy was an athletic kid, but fitness wasn't his first choice when it came to a career. Instead, he found success in the hotel industry.
But a decision to help further sales turned out to be a life-changing choice.
Joe’s Story
Joe McCarthy was going on ten years in the hotel industry and he was burning out. The 27-year-old sales manager of a hotel leisure center in Dublin, Ireland, he was “starting to get a little bit bored. I was looking for something more.” He decided to get back into working out—as a kid he’s been involved in martial arts, cross country and other sports—but his main goal was to get into the mind of a gym user, in order to further sales. Instead, it changed his life.
His personal training opened up a latent curiosity in him about how the body works, and how to keep it healthy. After studying personal training and nutrition, he became a personal trainer and manager at the gym that he used to sell memberships to. He was particularly inspired by one of his senior managers, a man who had a boundless enthusiasm for fitness that took him quite far in the fitness world, says Joe.
Though he was a bit nervous initially in making the shift from sales to fitness, Joe found inspiration in helping people. “It had more meaning to it than racking up a sales list and waiting for commission at the end of the month,” he says. His appetite for learning proved insatiable. “I was keen to soak up information,” he says.
“It had more meaning to it than racking up a sales list and waiting for commission at the end of the month.”
He was soon invited to lecture on fitness at a local Merrithew® LTC. “I should have done Pilates way earlier in my career,” Joe says. But he waited until the LTC owner asked him to train as a STOTT PILATES® Instructor. “When somebody asks me to do something, I rarely say no,” he says.
He began STOTT PILATES training at the same time that he was studying physical therapy. He was impressed by STOTT PILATES’ emphasis on integrity, and as he progressed through his training, his clients started to notice a difference in his work. “I had more knowledge, more confidence,” he said. “I definitely knew I was doing the right thing.”
Joe has trained and taken workshops with Merrithew STOTT PILATES®
Rehab MIT Melanie Byford-Young and Merrithew MIT Wayne Seeto, and augmented his training in physical therapy with the STOTT PILATES Rehab course in 2009. He and his wife Maryrose Fitzsimons-McCarthy opened their own business, Life Balance, in 2003, with Joe providing physical therapy and Pilates and Maryrose doing massage and reflexology.
He now gets referrals from local medical centers and works with a range of people that includes breast cancer survivors and aging clients. An avid runner, Pilates is also a part of his own fitness routine. “Now at 48 I feel better in my body than I did at 28,” he says.
But Joe’s appetite for learning has only increased. He is especially interested in Merrithew’s new fascial programming, and may try some new courses of study as well. “I want to explore tai chi,” he says. “And take a look at osteopathy.”